By John Earl
Surf City Voice

John V. Foley, chairman of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, failed to report over $248,000 of income from his wife, Mary Jane Foley, back to 2004, records obtained by the Surf City Voice under the Public Records Act show.

The California Fair Political Practices Act requires government officials, including employees and consultants, to publicly disclose their relevant economic interests, often including spousal income, within 30 days of assuming office and annually thereafter.

The officials make their disclosures on a Statement of Economic Interests or “700” form with their respective agencies, after which the information goes to the county and state. The report helps to highlight potential conflicts of interest they may have with issues that come before a government decision making body.

Under the Act, water board directors are required during meetings to disclose any potential conflicts they have with agenda items and to recuse themselves from the decision making process by leaving the room (for consent calendar items they must recuse but can stay in the room).

California Government Code 1090 is even stricter than the ACT.

Recognizing the indirect as well as direct influence that public officials have on decision making, 1090 prohibits any financial conflict of interest by those officials over contracts, even if the official isn’t voting; those officials, it says, “shall not be financially interested in any contract made by them in their official capacity, or by any body or board of which they are members.”

Since 2001, public records obtained by the Voice indicate, Foley’s wife has run her own business, MJF Consulting, Inc., while being paid directly or indirectly for consulting work by water agencies throughout southern California, including the MET and the Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC).

Foley, who has served on the MET since 1989, claimed that he was unaware of any obligation to report his wife’s income.

“I never felt it was required. You know, I don’t have no problem with it,” he told the Voice after a MWDOC meeting last September.

The Voice became aware of some of Foley’s missing financial disclosures after examining his 700 forms going back to 2006. But when questioned, Foley said that he had never reported his wife’s income.

But on October 25, a month after he was questioned by the Voice, Foley filed amended financial disclosures back to 2004 that include most – but not all – consulting income from his wife for each year, records show.

Foley did not respond to requests by the Voice to explain why he updated his disclosure reports and why they are still incomplete. But, according MWDOC General Manager Kevin Hunt, who was present at an interview with Foley conducted by SoCal PBS, Foley said that he had been advised by MET attorneys that it would be “more transparent” to revise his disclosures.

MET spokesperson Bob Muir refused to reveal any confidential advice given to Foley by MET legal counsel, but he did say that no disciplinary action was considered by the board for failing to comply with financial disclosure laws.

The still (partially) missing disclosures involve a three-year $125,000 contract between Byran Buck Associates (BBA) and five water agencies: the MET, MWDOC, San Diego Water Authority, West Basin Municipal Water District and the City of Long Beach Water Department.

Under the terms of the contract, which was administered by the MET, Mary Jane Foley was guaranteed a minimum amount of work as a subcontractor. She was paid $160 per hour or about $45,000 over the contract period. A total of $108,945 or $21,789 each was spent by the five agencies.

The contract was approved by the MET’s general manager, so it did not go to the board for a vote, although contracts for far less value sometimes do– a matter of the GM’s choice, according to MET regulations, when a contract is for $250,000 or less.

The BBA contract violated the law, says former Huntington Beach mayor Debbie Cook, who is also an environmental attorney. Cook has been examining the complex and often hidden operations of local water agencies and was recently interviewed as part of a PBS SoCal expose of the Santa Margarita Water District in south Orange County.

‘A Clear Violation’
Referring to the three-year contract, Cook concludes that it directly benefited long time director Jack Foley and his wife Mary Jane Foley.

“This is a clear violation of Government Code Section 1090. An agency like MWD [MET], with the kinds of resources it has available, should know better,” she wrote in an e-mail to the Voice.

Efforts to contact Chairman Foley since September have been unsuccessful, so far. But MET media spokesperson Armando Acuna, responding to inquires about the legality of Chairman Foley’s standing under 1090, told the Voice, also by e-mail, that “Metropolitan’s Legal Department represents Metropolitan and cannot give legal advice or a legal opinion to members of the public.”

The minimum estimate of $248,000 of unreported income is based on the BBA contracts as well as direct contracts between MWDOC and MJF Consulting, Inc., matched against income sources revealed in Foley’s amended 700 filings (but not including income from other, mostly private, sources that were also part of the amendment filings).

Mary Jane Foley’s work with the five water agencies involved regulatory, permitting and lobbying issues for a proposed ocean desalination plant at Dana Point and for the growth of ocean water (and brackish water) desalination plants throughout California. She is still under contract with MWDOC.

As Chairman of the MET, John Foley selects all members of all standing MET committees and appoints the chairpersons for all special committees and task forces. Before starting his second stint as chairman he headed up the MET’s Special Committee on Desalination and Recycling from its start in 2009 through 2010.

Foley regularly votes on desalination issues at the MET and discusses them at various MWDOC meetings. He is highly venerated by his peers throughout southern California and has strong Republican Party connections going back decades.

The MET casts a vast influence as a water wholesaler over all of southern California, including Ventura County, the Inland Empire, Orange County and San Diego. It delivers 1.6 billion gallons of water per day to 26 cities and water districts, including MWDOC, and to 19 million people, according to its website. MWDOC, in turn, helps manage water for its 28 water agencies and member cities in Orange County.

Foley is one of four appointees chosen by the MWDOC board of directors to represent it on the MET – and he is one of two within that group who were not elected by voters to either board.

The other unelected MET director representing MWDOC is Linda Ackerman. Her husband, Dick Ackerman, is a former California state legislator who works for Nossaman LLP, an Orange County legal and policy consulting firm under contract with MWDOC. Linda Ackerman includes that income source on her 700 forms.

A Seasoned Water Veteran
Cook is skeptical of Foley’s claim that he didn’t think he had to report. “He is a seasoned water veteran. He has received many hours of required training on avoidance of conflicts of interest, and it was common knowledge among his colleagues and MET staff that his wife’s income was derived from the same public agency [MWDOC] that he serves—shame on the entire industry that does not seem willing or able to police its own.”

Based on his impressive resume, Foley would seem anything but a novice when it comes to understanding the rules of water boarding.

He first came to the MET board of directors in 1989 as an appointee of MWDOC. He served as MET chairman from 1993 – 1998 and was elected again by that body to be chairman for a two year term starting in 2011.

From 1979 until Dec. 2007 Foley was also the General Manager of Moulton Niguel Water District in south Orange County. Moulton is one of five water agencies that make up the South Orange Coastal Ocean Desalination Project, a group that plans to build an ocean desalination plant in Dana Point—under guidance from MWDOC and with promised financial assistance from the MET.

Seven months after John Foley left Moulton his wife was warned of a potential conflict of interest with her work on the Dana Point desalination plant because her husband had been involved in that project as Moulton’s general manager. In an e-mail obtained by the Voice, Mary Jane Foley asks MWDOC’s project managers Richard Bell and Karl Seckel what she should do:

“Richard has informed me that since Jack is a signature to the participating desal group from MNWD, I will be perceived as a conflict. Richard said that South Coast will run my contract. How will this all be determined? Do I stop all work and communication with you all now?”

In this e-mail, Mary Jane Foley asks about a conflict of interest between her work and her husband's involvement in a project. To view at full size, click this image once, then after it appears in a new window, click it again.

But Mary Jane Foley continued her consulting work with MWDOC, as well as her work as a subcontractor for Byran Buck Associates. And what could have been taken as a wake up call for her husband – to report a potential conflict of interest on his 700 forms – was overlooked, at least until after the Voice forced the issue.

If hands-on experience isn’t the best teacher, then mandatory ethics training every two years also helps water board directors in California to understand their legal and ethical obligations to the public. Chairman Foley completed ethics classes given at the MET in 2008 and 2010.

He would also have received a copy of the MET’s ethics manual for directors, which reminds its readers of two levels of ethical practice. The first is compliance with “relevant laws, rules, regulations and policies” that come with the job. The second is a “level of ethically ideal behavior in which Directors, officers and employees strive to incorporate Metropolitan’s core values in their daily work.”

That work ethic is also spelled out clearly in the MET’s Administrative Code, Section 7102, which, it might be safely assumed, was also presented to Foley for his reading. On the matter of disclosure, it says, “Directors shall comply with applicable laws regulating their conduct, including conflict of interests and financial disclosure laws.”

When the Voice asked Chairman Foley (in September) if he saw any conflict between his support of desalination projects as a MET director and his wife’s extensive work promoting desalination for MWDOC (at that time the Voice was still unaware of the BBA contract), he denied any conflict and said, contrary to public records, that she had “very little” involvement in desalination issues. “I have nothing to do with it [her work],” he added.

Foley was indifferent when asked about a vote he cast—as a director and while he was Chairman of the Special Committee on Desalination and Recycling—for the MET to join CALDESAL, a pro-desalination lobbying organization that public documents show his wife played an important role in forming while under contract with MWDOC.

“Did the MET show me as voting for it,” he asked. “Whether she was involved or not, I would have supported it,” he said, laughing.

Besides, he explained, “It’s not really a conflict of interest. You’ve got to draw a direct line to really make a point of conflict of interest.”

Foley was obliquely, whether accurately or not, comparing his own situation to legal exemptions that are made in cases where the conflict of interest is, in legal parlance, remote.

“You know, I believe in conservation,” he said, rhetorically. “Does that mean I have a conflict of interest because we voted for conservation?”

By Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Special to the Surf City Voice

If you are looking for a passionless primer on modern economics spouting platitudes about how western style capitalism, unregulated markets and globalization are fail proof and good for all, this book is not for you.

If, instead, your guts tell you something is seriously amiss when the gulf between the rich and the poor is ever widening and the health of the planet is on a steady decline, all while politicians bicker over policy nuances that have nothing to do with solving these immense realities, then you will find this book vital and loaded with truths.

The authors are Philip B. Smith, a recently deceased physicist-turned-economist who recognized that the discipline of economics lacks the value-free pursuit of truth ideally embraced by hard sciences, like physics or chemistry, and Manfred Max-Neef, a very much alive academic economist who, when confronted with poverty in the flesh, became a dissident of mainstream economics upon realizing that everything he’d been taught left him bereft of any real understanding of poverty and its solutions.

They joined forces in this mostly easy to digest book (I have never had an economics course) to expose how the predominant economic paradigm driving the world’s economies today is based on far less-than-lofty values – greed, competition and accumulation – values so universally sanctioned that no apology is deemed necessary even though it can be shown that wealth accumulated through such a system leads to immeasurable human injustices and environmental ills.

This paradigm fosters rapid economic expansion “at any cost” to people or the planet, and it is fed by the uncontrolled consumption of fossil fuels and a belief that consumerism is the path to happiness. It also concentrates power and wealth in the hands of a small minority.

Several “myths” underlying the economic system which have successfully evaded scrutiny are brought to light. Most fundamental is the notion that perpetually increasing economic growth and production are a necessity, and even possible, on a finite planet.  A case is made that such magical thinking is the root cause of global warming and depletion of natural resources including oil and gas, fresh water and biodiversity. The authors warn of the inevitable environmental crash in our future if a more sustainable economic system is not adopted.

Other myths debunked include the views that globalization is inevitable and the only route to development (recall that the United States did not follow such a model) and that competition and integration into the world economy are necessarily good for poor nations. We are reminded, for example, that the natural resources of poorer nations are very often plundered and their local industries destroyed by rich nations under the pretext of globalization, and that jobs are lost at home when competition prompts corporations to outsource overseas.

Furthermore, democracy takes a back seat to corporate power when international institutions like the World Trade Organization dictate laws and regulations that nations need follow which effectively enable corporations to “rule the world.”

Who has gained

An over-arching theme of this book is the de-humanization of mainstream economics, where the GNP (gross national product) is revered as the ultimate indicator of a nation’s wealth, when in reality the GNP has become detached from the real measures of a nation’s success and well-being: the health and economic security of its peoples and their freedom to act in pursuit of their own best interests. The authors stress that a shift to a humanized economy will necessitate that culturally approved values of greed, competition and accumulation be replaced by solidarity, cooperation and compassion.

The key premises upon which a humanized economy would need to be based are laid out. Among them are realizations that the purpose of the economy is to serve the needs of people and not the reverse, that the economy takes place within the biosphere so permanent growth is impossible, and that reverence for life trumps all other economic interests.

Although “Economics Unmasked” reached bookstore shelves just months before the Occupy and 99 Percent movements had names or affiliates, it’s fair to say they seem drawn from the same wellspring of moral outrage over the social and environmental injustices attributable to the prevailing economic model. The fundamental difference perhaps is that the book authors’ academic backgrounds and access to real world facts about mainstream economics enabled them to lay out a forceful imperative for and roadmap to a more moral economic paradigm whereas, accurate or not, Occupy and 99 Percent have been criticized for lacking clear messages and solutions.

Activists within these movements, as well as sympathetic onlookers, would no doubt benefit from reading this book to help them better articulate both their grievances with the status quo and proposals for change. And to those who might take offense at any criticism of capitalism, know that this book is in no way a blanket indictment of capitalism, just of its recent incarnation.

“Economics Unmasked” was published in 2011 in the United Kingdom by Green Books.

By Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Special to the Surf City Voice

What if chemicals your great-great grandmother was exposed to, or even her diet, could affect your risk of falling victim to cancers, mental illness or Alzheimer’s disease? Sounds far-fetched perhaps, but what we are learning about the new science of epigenetics says it’s very possible and happens without a change to the DNA you inherited from her.

Epigenetics also explains how it is that your brain and toe are made of cells with identical DNA, but look and function so differently, and why identical twins are never exact replicas, though their DNA is.

The basis for all these phenomena lies not in the genome – the DNA sequences  which make up our genes – but rather in intricate cell machinery sitting atop the DNA that dictates which genes are turned on or off at any point in the life of both a single cell or an entire organism, like a human being. A good analogy would be the orchestra conductor signaling when each instrument should play and how loudly. The Greek prefix “epi” means “on top of” or “in addition to,” hence the epigenome denotes the apparatus attached to the genome within a cell’s nucleus which enables tissues and even whole organisms with identical DNA to look and function very differently.

It’s long been appreciated that the epigenome is what coordinates the development of a fetus, telling an undifferentiated stem cell, for example, to morph into a heart cell at the right time. Because the epigenome is replicated along with the DNA during cell division, it also provides the “cell memory” needed so the heart cell knows to keep making more heart cells.

However, what’s new and creating shockwaves in our understanding of human illnesses is that the epigenome is influenced throughout our lifetime by not only normal internal factors, such as hormones, but by external ones too, like diet, drugs, stress and environmental pollutants. An epigenome that can adjust to changes in environmental conditions, like a scarcity of food, is advantageous if the adjustments enable better adaptation to the environment. However, a non-fixed epigenome also means that conditions you were exposed to early in development which modified the epigenome in unfortunate ways might trigger diseases cropping up even decades later in adulthood.

Moreover, where we used to assume that any acquired epigenetic changes were erased during the type of cell division that produces eggs and sperm, we know now that eggs and sperm can also retain acquired epigenetic markings which, good or bad, can be passed on to your children and your children’s children.

The Epigenetic Machinery

The human genome is comprised of 20-25,000 genes, but by far the majority are turned off in differentiated cells through various epigenetic means. Significant progress has been made in recent years in understanding two particular epigenetic mechanisms and how they relate to human diseases.

The most studied is called DNA methylation where methyl groups (CH3) – a common chemical structure in foods and vitamins – attach directly onto the strands of DNA, like charms on a chain-link bracelet, and have the effect of silencing genes. The importance of DNA methylation is illustrated by the fact that, during the normal development of an embryo, DNA undergoes critical waves of both methylation and de-methylation which orchestrate healthy cell growth and differentiation.

The other epigenetic mechanism, so-called histone modification, is a bit more convoluted. DNA strands are very long – a single strand is made of tens of millions of the building block base nucleotides. Consequently, nature has developed a system of packaging the DNA that both keeps it compact and regulates which parts are available, or not, for transcription.

From: National Institutes for Health

Proteins called histones group together to form spool-like structures around which the DNA is wrapped, much like threads on a spool. DNA that is tightly wrapped is generally inaccessible for read-out and so is repressed. In the parlance of geneticists, such DNA sections are “closed.” In contrast, loosely wrapped DNA is “open” and the genes in those areas are generally active.

The histones determine how the DNA wraps around them by way of “histone tails” that stick out and are available to be tagged by chemical factors floating by. Depending on what factors latch on and where, the histone shape is modified which, in turn, affects whether the DNA is open or closed.

For instance, an “acetyl” tag (COCH3) on a histone tail generally opens up the adjacent DNA for read-out, whereas removing or replacing an acetyl tag with a different factor can have the opposite effect. Acetyl is another very common chemical structure found, for example, in acetaminophen, aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) and heroin (diacetylmorphine).

Unless a mutation occurs, the DNA sequence remains fixed for the life of a cell. However, both DNA methylation and histone tail modifications are, by design, changeable and consequently sensitive to the cell’s environment. So for a whole organism like a human being, anything which affects the chemical soup inside its cells can potentially alter which genes are expressed and, thus, the health of the whole organism.  Scientists are just now getting an idea of the wide spectrum of environmental factors which could be shaping the human epigenome.

Epigenetic Diseases
It goes without saying that a person’s DNA determines vulnerability to many ailments through either inherited genes or, occasionally, new DNA mutations. A clear-cut example would be Huntington’s disease, a neurodegenerative condition where a child inheriting a single defective gene from either parent with the disease will also be afflicted 100 percent of the time.

The realization that the epigenome also plays a role in many illnesses grew, in part, out of the observation that some ailments appear at certain ages, suggesting a switch of some sort had been flipped. For example, symptoms of schizophrenia rarely appear before adolescence, and the onset of Huntington’s disease is usually delayed until after the age of 35. Scientists suspect that the epigenome keeps the defective gene(s) in check early on, but that epigenetic changes accumulate gradually over time so the defect is eventually unmasked and the person falls ill.

Experts think that a build up of epigenetic changes also explains why one identical twin develops a disease and the other does not. When the epigenomes of twins are compared, the epigenetic markings are essentially identical as toddlers, but become much less similar as time goes on and their vulnerabilities to illnesses also diverge. Schizophrenia is one disorder known to run in families and has a strong genetic basis, so researchers are actively looking into and finding patterns of DNA methylation and histone modifications of the suspect genes that could explain why nearly half the time when one twin is afflicted the other is spared.

In autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, the frequency of the second twin falling victim too when one has the condition is much lower, between one in four and one in eight. This suggests that a genetically inherited susceptibility is only part of the story, and researchers have found the epigenome fertile ground for hints to the rest. Take lupus, for instance, a condition where the body’s immune system goes haywire and attacks the skin, joints and/or internal organs. No one gene causes the disease, but more than 20 which participate have already been identified. The known environmental triggers are ones that damage cells (like ultraviolet light, viruses and certain drugs), thus exposing the immune system to novel cell components normally locked away within the nucleus. There is compelling evidence that environmental triggers act through DNA de-methylation of so-called T-cells, the foot soldiers of the immune system that consequently go renegade and mistake normal cell components for foreign invaders. The T-cells of people with lupus have the same pattern of de-methylation as do T-cells exposed to drugs known to both inhibit DNA methylation and set off lupus symptoms.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting one in 16 people after the age of 65. Post-mortem brain analyses reveal extensive atrophy with a signature buildup of abnormal deposits called plaques and tangles. The vast majority of cases are sporadic, meaning the disease does not run in families and can’t be tied to particular genes, which has led geneticists to turn to the epigenome for answers. What they are finding is described as “epigenetic drift,” a gradual accumulation of many epigenetic changes spread throughout the genome, affecting both genes that protect against Alzheimer’s and others that add risk. Because the brains available for study are generally from persons with very advanced stages of the disease, it’s not yet certain whether epigenetic drift is the cause or the consequence of the disease.

Nevertheless, the current thinking is that as yet unidentified environmental factors spur epigenetic changes pivotal to the onset of the disease, and this notion has traction from studies showing that a healthy diet (like the Mediterranean diet which is rich in fruits, vegetables and omega-3 fatty acids), physical exercise and married lifestyle (i.e. co-habitation) are the best known defenses. Among the specific nutritional components that could be involved are vitamins B12, B6 and folate because they are good methyl group sources, and diets deficient in these substances increase risk for Alzheimer’s. Coffee drinking and long-term use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, like aspirin and ibuprofen, also seem to be protective, whereas cigarette smoking increases risk.

Epigenetic drift is also characteristic of normal aging, which probably explains why aging is, by itself, the greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s. A global loss in DNA methylation occurs during aging, and animal studies suggest that longer lifespan is correlated with slowed DNA de-methylation. Scientists suspect that dietary calorie restriction, the only intervention in mammals shown to increase lifespan, likely acts through epigenetic modifications that slow a normal age-related loss of a family of proteins that seem to keep cells younger.

Cancer begins with a DNA mutation, but a wealth of recent research is pointing to a major role of epigenetics in cancers too. For example, many types of cancer cells have been found to have an abnormal pattern of methylation where the DNA is globally under-methylated but certain genes – like ones that repair DNA or normally prevent cell growth from getting out of hand – are blocked by local excess methylation. The list of cancers already linked to abnormal DNA methylation of specific genes is expanding rapidly and includes lung, ovarian, breast, endometrial,  bladder, esophagus, stomach, intestinal, colon and melanoma as well as blood cancers like lymphoma, leukemia and myelodysplastic syndrome. The number of cancers associated with specific histone modifications is nearly as large.

Epigenetic Inheritance & Environmental Influences
The idea that physical or behavioral traits acquired during one’s lifetime could be handed down to the next generation was, until very recently, relegated by modern geneticists to the trash heap.  As example of the kind of experiment that discredited this notion, the offspring of mice whose tails have been chopped short are always born with normal length tails.

However, recent experiments have demonstrated that traits acquired through alterations in the epigenome are sometimes passed on in eggs or sperm via epigenetic inheritance. One striking example revolves around a mouse gene variant dubbed the agouti where the gene’s pattern of methylation determines both coat color and health. In the hypo-methylated state, agouti mice are born yellow and become obese and prone to tumors and diabetes. Methylation silences the agouti gene, producing thin brown rats with few tumors.

One astounding aspect of the agouti story is that just manipulating how rich a pregnant mouse’s diet is in sources of methyl groups influences whether the offspring are born of the brown or yellow type. That diet alone could induce epigenetic changes which affect susceptibility to illness is very intriguing given that the incidence of several cancers, heart disease, diabetes and many other human conditions are already known to be influenced by diet. The other astonishing finding is that the mother’s (and even grandmother’s)  coat color determined the likelihood pups were born brown or yellow, showing that the methylation pattern in eggs cells was not reset but rather retained through another generation.

In humans, evidence is accruing that diet – in this case the availability of food – early in development influences whether a person develops schizophrenia. Parts of China experienced a severe famine affecting tens of millions of people from 1959 to 1961. An epidemiological study has shown that babies born during this period were at more than double the risk for eventually developing schizophrenia. Although how an early famine diet would foster schizophrenia is not yet known, a twin study reported in 2011, which links both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder to altered methylation at some key genes in the affected twin, has scientists thinking that famine might act through the epigenome.

Synthetic chemicals in the environment are an obvious place to look for environmental influences on the epigenome. In 2005, the first study was published demonstrating that fetal exposure to an environmental toxin could trigger illness in adulthood through an epigenetic mechanism and that subsequent, unexposed generations are also affected.  Researchers at Washington State University found that pregnant rats exposed to a common fungicide or pesticide known to mimic or block sex hormones produced, through altered DNA methylation, sons, grandsons, great-grandsons and even great-great-grandsons with low sperm counts and reduced fertility.

Follow-up studies revealed that, by a similar epigenetic mechanism, brief fungicide exposure during fetal life also conferred increased risk for several diseases of aging in both male and female rats across multiple succeeding generations. The afflictions most often passed on included kidney and prostate diseases, testis abnormalities, and tumors of the breast, lung and skin.

The applicability of such findings to humans is unclear, especially given that the chemical doses used were rather high, but subsequent research on other environmental contaminants has only intensified concern that prenatal exposure can instigate epigenetic changes with harmful effects appearing later in life.

In a University of Illinois study for example, fetal male rats exposed to the estrogen-mimicking chemical bisphenol A (found in plastics and the lining of canned foods) subsequently developed early signs of prostrate cancer, with evidence pointing to altered DNA methylation of a gene linked to prostate cancer as the likely mechanism. Importantly, the dose of bisphenol A used was low and produced tissue levels comparable to those commonly seen in people.

Recent investigations have made clear that remodeling of the epigenome can occur in response to environmental factors far more subtle than toxic chemicals and should be considered as a candidate means through which most any environmental factor influences the physical characteristics or behaviors of animals and humans. For instance, studies in rats have shown that the quality of maternal care – defined as the amount of licking and grooming a pup receives from its mother in the first week after birth – permanently imprints the epigenome (through processes including DNA de-methylation and histone acetylation) and determines how the animals react to stress as adults. Researchers are positing that analogous early epigenomic imprinting might explain how children deprived of adequate parental care can exhibit severe cognitive and behavioral problems persisting into adulthood.

The Future of Epigenetics
A bedrock tenet of evolutionary biology has been that evolution occurs very slowly as a consequence of rare and random changes to the genetic code and that those changes which foster better adaptation to the environment get passed on the most. Epigenetics is turning this notion on its head because epigenetic changes are neither random nor do they involve the genetic code, and the interplay with the environment is different because the environment instigates rapid changes to the epigenome throughout one’s lifetime that can be inherited by future generations.

Even though our understanding of epigenetics is in its infancy, how we conceptualize the evolution of all life forms, including our own, is already transformed. We should also expect that epigenetics will revolutionize the entire field of medicine. Scientists have begun looking into how epigenetic markers might be used to catch diseases earlier on and to predict how well a given treatment, like chemotherapy, will work. A new generation of pharmaceuticals which manipulate the epigenome to switch targeted genes on or off is under investigation too, and the new field of “nutragenomics” is gaining credibility as a means to repair or optimize the epigenome through diet alone.

The most important shift in our thinking, however, will hopefully come from a much deeper and sorely needed respect for how tied our own future as a species is to the state of the environment. Western society tends to see humans as somehow outside of or even in conflict with nature, hence the ease with which we find convenient excuses for polluting the air, soil and water. Perhaps the core lesson to be learned from epigenetics is that there is no real boundary between us and the rest of nature. We are, literally, everything we eat, drink, breathe in and absorb through our skins. We are inseparable from the environment and should tend to it with the same care we give to raising children.

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

An Irvine water official recently let members of the Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) board know that their public relations efforts on behalf of ocean desalination aren’t necessarily welcomed in his agency’s jurisdiction, which stretches across the county’s mid-section as its largest water district.

MWDOC is the retailer for 28 water agencies throughout the county.

Open dissent by local water officials toward ocean desalination projects is rarely if ever heard at MWDOC meetings, where the belief that such projects, however costly, are a vital part of a larger water portfolio is all but officially treated as sacrosanct.

The official, Peer Swan, one of five directors for the Irvine Ranch Water District, spoke out at a monthly meeting of MWDOC’s Public Affairs and Legislation Committee held on Monday, Dec. 19. He told the board that the agencies that don’t agree with the premise of the PR campaign should be able to opt out.

“I would expect that you would respect your customer’s request not to go in and do a PR campaign on something they don’t support,” Swan said.

MWDOC’s directors were discussing plans to increase their efforts to educate county residents about the supposed needs for ocean desalination in Orange County.

MWDOC wants to convince county residents that desalinated ocean water will guarantee them an endless and reliable supply of drinking water during future water shortages to be caused – inevitably – by droughts or by earthquakes that will break water supply lines; or worse, cause the collapse of the California Delta, which supplies about half of Orange County’s water.

MWDOC is pushing two major ocean desalination projects in Orange County. One of them would be in Huntington Beach where Poseidon Resources, Inc. won approval by the city to build (with the help of huge public subsidies) one of the largest and costliest desalination plants in the western hemisphere (the other, similar plant, would be built by Poseidon in Carlsbad in San Diego County)—after offering tax increments and other financial benefits.

Poseidon is stumbling its way through the final stages of the permit process but still lacks private financing. MWDOC is seeking $350 million in public assistance to make the project cost effective for the company and to attract the private investors that it (Poseidon) needs to move forward.

The other, smaller project, which is backed by five south county water agencies, would be publicly owned and located adjacent to San Juan Creek on property that is owned by South Coast Water District.

Unlike the Poseidon plant, which would suck in over 100 million gallons of sea water a day through the intake pipes used by a huge power plant, its ocean intake system would be buried under the beach at Dana Point, where a pilot plant already is operating.

Far from shovel ready, the Dana Point desalination project seems headed for a decision by the local agencies sometime in 2012. From that point it would move into the final design stage and permitting by the relevant government bodies. Construction would start in the 2017 or 2018, according to project manager Karl Seckel.

MWDOC’s staff provided details of the agency’s strategy for gaining public support for the Dana Point project at the meeting.

“We have been working with the project participants to begin getting either letters of support or formal endorsements from community groups, business organizations, and environmental groups within their area, but also county wide,” explained David Cordero, MWDOC’s Director of Governmental Affairs.

Responding to Swan, General Manager Kevin Hunt elaborated on the broader scope of MWDOC’s outreach efforts, including the Poseidon project, which 21 county water agencies, including IRWD, have indicated an interest in, however tenuous. Very few of those agencies disagree with continuing to discuss ocean desalination “as a viable option county wide,” he said.

MWDOC Director Wayne Clark, whose district makes up about half of the IRWD service area, took umbrage with Swan’s suggestion that MWDOC was out of touch. “I represent Irvine as well as other areas and I think that I’m quite capable of communicating with my own constituents,” he said.

But Swan persisted. “We’re in negotiations with Poseidon,” he said. “Until we get a negotiated contract, I think that using the MO that they used in San Diego, creating a tsunami before the agencies approve things, is an inappropriate thing in Orange County.”

Swan told the Voice after the meeting that he doesn’t want the county’s water agencies to be boxed into supporting programs that don’t make much sense. And he thinks there should be a defined program with agreed upon principles and financing before MWDOC or its agencies seek public support for it.

Swan is personally opposed to both ocean desalination plants but not for any of the environmental reasons often listed by other opponents, who are concerned that, especially in the case of Poseidon, marine life will be killed by the associated intake and outflow systems. He is opposed because he believes that neither project will fulfill its intended purpose—to provide a needed or cost-effective water supply.

An ocean desalination plant by its nature has to run 24/7, an expensive operation, Swan says; but the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MET), MWDOC’s umbrella agency, “already provides a reliable supply for water for South County 98 percent of the time at a fraction of the cost of the [Dana Point] desal plant.”

Results of a recent poll conducted by Lewis Consulting

And South County residents would be subject to any water shortages (including rationing) that the MET would apply uniformly as a matter of policy, he adds.

“So the plan itself doesn’t supply water in the event of shortages,” Swan said.  “A couple of hundred million dollars for a very small amount of water is a very expensive project for shortages. And there are much cheaper alternatives to provide reliability to South County which have not been as actively pursued.”

There is no need for the Poseidon project either, according to Swan, because it would serve an area that already gets 70 – 80 percent of its water from an existing underground water supply that could provide 100 percent of the water needed in an emergency.

“What these projects will do is provide an expensive new source of water for MET that the local agencies will pay for,” Swan says. “It will add reliability to the MET system because if you produce water in Huntington Beach or Dana Point, MET will no longer need to supply them because there is cheaper water elsewhere. Thank you very much!”

In this election season, as Orange County voters are constantly warned about government overspending, including bullet train boondoggles, ocean desalination critics like Swan may have found a crack in the veneer of unanimity that MWDOC uses as a cloak to protect and promote its desal dreams.

A new poll, conducted for MWDOC by Lewis Consulting, with a sample of 500 registered Orange County voters, shows a statistically significant decline in support for ocean desalination—from 73 percent in 2008 to 63 percent last October.

In each case the respondents were asked, “When thinking about increasing Orange County’s water supply, do you think ocean desalination is a good idea or a bad idea?”

Sixty-three percent is still a landslide of public support for ocean desalination, but that support might not all be transferable to MWDOC’s two ocean desalination projects, which the 500 voters weren’t asked about.

In fact, there may be a lot of leverage for critics of the Poseidon and Dana Point desalination proposals provided by the questions that, so far, pollsters haven’t asked the public.

MWDOC Director Larry Dick, a stalwart supporter of both projects and ocean desalination in general, may have unintentionally revealed that opening at a Nov. 21 board meeting after the poll’s presenter, John Lewis, explained that seniors, at 75 percent, were more likely than any other group to believe that ocean desalination was a good idea.

Dick asked Lewis if, “The seniors who are so in favor of desalination—are they aware of how much it is going to cost versus other things [water supply sources]?”

“No,” Lewis answered, adding that obtaining an in-depth look at voter sentiments would require asking questions that add the necessary information.

Like, “Would you feel the same way if you knew it was going to cost 40 percent more?”

“Exactly,” Lewis said.

Photo, top right: Mobile testing facility for Dana Point ocean desalination project. Courtesy MWDOC

By Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Special to the Voice

If you have already switched to an eco-friendly laundry detergent, as many people do to contribute less to water pollution, you might be surprised to learn that the pollution you generate on wash day has as much to do with the kind of fabrics your clothes, bedding and towels are made of as the detergent you wash them in.

Recent studies have revealed that a single garment made of polyester can shed innumerable tiny fibers into the wash water, and those fibers are finding their way to the ocean. The pollution they cause is worsened by the fact that, like plastic materials in general, polyester attracts oily pollutants in seawater so is a vehicle for the transfer of potentially dangerous chemicals into the food web when the fibers are ingested by sea creatures.

Although we don’t usually think of polyester fabrics as plastic per se, polyester is nonetheless a plastic material synthesized from crude oil and natural gas. And, like other plastics, polyester is a long polymer chain, making it non-biodegradable in any practical human scale of time, especially in the ocean because of the cooler temperatures.

Particular attention to ocean pollution from plastics has intensified ever since the late ‘90s when Captain Charles Moore of the Algalita Marine Research Foundation based in California first trawled a now infamous Texas-sized area of the Pacific Ocean dubbed the “great Pacific garbage patch” to quantify the extent of plastic pollution. The startling discovery at that time was that plastic debris already outweighed zooplankton (organisms at the base of the ocean food web) by a factor of six to one. Moore just revisited the same area last year and reports that the ratio of plastic debris to zooplankton has increased six-fold in under a decade.

When we reflect on ocean pollution from plastics, we tend to think of larger eyesores of plastic debris, like plastic bags, foam cups, abandoned fishing nets and drink bottles and caps. It’s already well-documented that many fish, seabirds, turtles and marine mammals die each year because of ingestion or entanglement in such obvious plastic refuse. But when exposed to sunlight and other environmental stresses, plastics break apart into smaller scraps which, nevertheless, remain as a plastic polymer and non-biodegradable. Once fragmented into bits less than one millimeter (the size of a pin head), they are called “microplastics.”

The breakdown of larger plastics is not the only known source of microplastics pollution. Two others have been identified in the sewage stream: tiny plastic granules, used in beauty products and cleaning agents as scrubbers, and spillage of plastic powders and pellets which are the industrial raw materials for fabricating consumer plastics. Microplastic fibers of an unknown source are also showing up in the sewage stream. Because waste treatment plants are not designed to filter out microplastics, any that enter the sewage stream end up in the ocean and anywhere else the outflow from waste treatment plants is dumped.

Though invisible to the casual observer, microplastics are accumulating throughout marine habitats, and research is showing that they already outnumber larger plastic fragments. For example, one study sampling a British estuary – where the ocean tide meets a river’s end – found that microplastics accounted for 65 percent of all plastic debris.

Although it might seem counter intuitive, the tiny dimension of microplastics actually adds to the dangers they represent as ocean pollutants. Since a pioneering study published in 2001, we’ve known that, because plastics are lipophylic (oil-loving), oily contaminants in seawater are drawn to them. Japanese researchers found that plastic pellets no more than a half millimeter in diameter could adsorb hazardous chemicals (like polychlorinated biphenyls, nonylphenols and derivatives of DDT) onto their surfaces at up to one million times the concentrations in the surrounding water. The kicker about microplastics is that, because of their smallness, the surface area is large relative to the overall size, providing more surface area to which chemicals can adhere: Think of a bottle filled with marbles – the total surface area of all the marbles is greater than the surface area of the bottle.

And, the miniscule size of microplastics means that even minute creatures could ingest them, either by accident or by mistaking them for food, thereby introducing any chemicals on board into the very bottom of the food chain. Adding to this worry, plastics themselves are generally complex substances with several chemical additives, some with known negative health effects in lab animals and humans. Scientists have already documented ingestion of microplastics by little ocean critters like sand worms, barnacles and small crustaceans called amphipods. Research has also shown that, once ingested by animals, microplastics are stored in tissues and cells with unknown health consequences for both the animals and us eating up at the top of the food chain.

Another obvious downside to microplastics is that their size makes them utterly impossible to clean up once they get into the ocean, or any other environment for that matter.

What all this has to do with polyester fabrics on wash day is pretty straightforward. Polyester cloths are used in innumerable items routinely laundered at home, such as blankets, towels and every sort of garment. They are by design composed of tiny plastic fibers, so on a hunch that polyester fibers from laundering are a major source of the microplastic fibers polluting ocean habitats, a team of researchers from the British Isles, Canada and Australia measured the quantity of microplastic fibers from polyester blankets, shirts and fleeces that are discharged into the wastewater from domestic washing machines. As reported in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, a single polyester item can produce more than 1900 fibers in one washing. Every article tested produced more than 100 microfibers per liter of wastewater, and the worst offenders were the fleeces.

The researchers also provided strong evidence linking polyester from laundering to ocean pollution. They found that every one of 18 shorelines sampled across the globe was fouled with microplastic fibers, predominantly of polyester. The shorelines of more densely populated areas or where sewage is discharged were the most contaminated. Furthermore, by characterizing the microplastics in the outflow of sewage treatment plants, they were able to show that polyester fibers from laundering were the prime source of microplastic pollution in general, more than from fragmentation of larger plastics or from cleaning products.

Polyester fleece has been touted as a good environmental choice because it can be manufactured out of recycled plastic bottles, but these new findings on microplastics put a whole new slant on the sustainability of any polyester fabrics. Even when manufactured from recycled plastic, the persistent ocean pollution polyester inevitably creates downstream should outweigh any arguments in favor. The fact that polyester is ultimately derived from petroleum oil and natural gas, both non-renewable resources, adds further weight to such misgivings.

Human population went from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.6 billion in 2005 and is expected to reach nine billion by 2050. We probably can’t do anything about the microplastics that are already contaminating our oceans and other environments, but we can stem the flow of further microplastics by making smarter, more responsible choices of what we purchase and throw into the washing machine on laundry day.

Natural fiber cloths of cotton, silk, wool, bamboo, hemp and even soy are available. All derive from renewable sources, are intrinsically biodegradable, and their fibers would not attract oily chemicals out of seawater. When choosing cotton, organic is best because of the large quantities of pesticides applied in growing conventional cotton.

By Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Special to the Voice

On August 1, Long Beach became the thirteenth jurisdiction within California to ban single-use plastic carryout bags at supermarkets and large retailers. Huntington Beach (HB) could soon join that list if City Council members Connie Boardman, Devin Dwyer and Joe Shaw can convince other council members.

A proposal to develop an ordinance to ban flimsy, disposable plastic carryout bags is on the Monday, August 15 HB City Council meeting agenda. The meeting starts at 7 pm at City Hall.

If a HB ordinance were to be modeled after the Long Beach one, it would also include a 10 cent customer fee for each paper bag dispensed, as the goal is not to convert to disposable paper bags but rather to encourage use of bags which can be used over 100 times.

The Long Beach ban took effect after a pivotal and unanimous California Supreme Court decision on July 14 which eases the way for local plastic bag bans by ruling that the city of Manhattan Beach did not have to complete a lengthy study of the environmental impact of disposable paper bags before baring retailers from dispensing plastic ones.

Such environmental impact reports are costly, and the plastic bag industry has successfully used them to block a municipality from enacting a local plastic bag ban by suing the city when an environmental impact report has not been performed.

Californians consume more than 12 billion single-use plastic bags per year, according to Environment California, a state-wide environmental advocacy organization. Very few get recycled, in part because plastic bags are rarely included in curbside recycling programs.

Plastic bag litter is not only an eyesore on land but also fouls waterways and kills marine animals who mistake the bags for food. A floating plastic bag resembles a jellyfish, which probably explains why plastic bags are found clogging the digestive tracts of dead sea turtles and marine mammals like whales and dolphins.

Plastic bags are a significant source of ocean pollution because, like all plastics derived from petroleum, they are non-biodegradable and are thought to persist in the ocean for up to hundreds of years as they just fragment over time into smaller bits of plastic.

The Long Beach-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation has been measuring the buildup up of plastic debris in an area of the Pacific twice the size of Texas and dubbed the “Pacific Garbage Patch” which, in 1999, already contained six times more plastic than zooplankton. Preliminary analysis of ocean samples collected less than a decade later indicate that the ratio of plastic to plankton has risen six-fold.

Even here right off the coast of southern California, Algalita has previously found plastic debris at all ocean depths and in amounts sometimes exceeding twice that of zooplankton.

Local attempts in California to ban the dispensing of throw-away plastic bags began to multiply after the plastic industry successfully lobbied the state legislature in 2006 to pass a law that specifically prohibited cities or counties from imposing fees on plastic bags while supposedly encouraging plastic bag recycling by mandating that stores install plastic bag recycling bins for customers to bring back their used bags (AB2447).

Environmental groups, like the Surfrider Foundation and Costa Mesa-based Earth Resource Foundation, had generally favored the bag fee approach as a way to motivate shoppers to get in the habit of bringing their own reusable bags. The prohibition against fees on plastic bags remains in effect until 2013.

An attempt to enact instead a state-wide ban on plastic carryout bags failed just last September when the California Senate voted down a bill already passed by the Assembly (AB 1998). The bill also included a requirement that shoppers be charged for paper carryout bags. Then Governor Schwarzenegger had signaled he would have signed it. Continue Reading

By Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Special to the Voice

A plant based diet beats a traditional meat based diet hands down when it comes to trimming one’s contribution to greenhouse gases, but not everyone is willing to plunge headlong into a life of tofu dogs and bean burgers.

No doubt there are even plenty self proclaimed vegetarians out there who guiltily sneak in some fried chicken, pork chops or a tuna melt from time to time and face self-recriminations afterward for satisfying such cravings at the expense of a warming planet.

The good news for either lapsed vegetarians or meat eaters with an environmental conscience is that meats and dairy products are not all created equal when it comes to the quantity of greenhouse gases (GHG) produced. In fact, a study just released by the non profit organization Environmental Working Group (EWG) and titled “Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change + Health” reveals that by avoiding just the three worst GHG offenders – lamb, beef and cheese – even hardcore meat eaters can make a sizable dent in their diet’s climate change footprint.

EWG, in partnership with CleanMetrics, an environmental analysis firm, examined the “cradle to grave” lifecycle, from farm to retail to plate to disposal, of 20 popular foods in four categories – meats, fish, dairy and vegetable protein – and compared the GHG produced by each. Continue Reading

By Sarah (Steve) Mosko
Special to the Voice

Under a loosely-worded Huntington Beach “nuisance” code ordinance, a clothesline could be considered a public nuisance if “unsightly by reason of its condition or location.” A resident’s complaint would trigger assessment by a code enforcement officer who would determine whether a clothesline was in violation. Editor

During the Leave It to Beaver era of the late 1950s, most homes certainly had a clothesline and probably no one thought much about whether it offended their neighbors. It’s a safe assumption that June Cleaver, the perfect homemaker, would have taken issue with anyone even hinting her clothesline was an eyesore.

Then fast forward a half century to the present where the majority of Americans have abandoned the clothesline in favor of electric or gas dryers and homeowners associations (HOAs) routinely prohibit clotheslines or impose such restrictions as to effectively ban them. One can only guess what June would have said to that, even absent her knowing about the threats from global climate change and the pressing need to reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Few today will dispute that tossing a load of wet clothes into a clothes dryer is more convenient than pinning up clothes, one by one, and surveys confirm that most people living in communities governed by HOAs have no problem abiding by the restrictions on clotheslines from the standpoint of curb appeal or property values.

However, interest in reducing the oversized energy footprint of Americans – twice that of people living in the European Union – has given rise in a handful of states to so-called “right-to-dry” laws that rein in restrictions HOAs or other entities can impose on residents’ freedom to use clotheslines. California is not among them, however, despite its sunny weather and reputation for environmental progressiveness. Continue Reading

By John Earl
Surf City Voice

What is the future of seawater desalination in California?

As of 2006, 22 desalination plants had been proposed for construction along the California coast between San Rafael in the north to Carlsbad in the south. Today, only nine projects are still in the running, and even those are on shaky ground, according to an analysis by the Desal Response Group, a statewide organization generally opposed to ocean desalination.

Critics of ocean desalination (desal) say that the water industry’s dream — shared with evangelical zeal by a growing cabal of public water officials — of sprinkling the coast with desalination plants is dead in the water.

As proof, they point to spiraling costs, lack of financing, stalled technology, and higher than average water supplies after the end of the California “drought.” They say that there are underutilized and much more cost-efficient alternatives such as conservation, increased water collection and waste water recycling – minus seawater desal’s high environmental costs.

That’s why desal critics are upset after a June 6 vote by the Municipal Water District of Orange County (MWDOC) to send a letter to its umbrella agency, the Metropolitan Water District of Los Angeles County (MET), to request $350 million in funding support for the Huntington Beach Desalination Project that Poseidon Resources Inc. wants to build on Pacific Coast Highway and Newland Avenue.

At an estimated construction cost of $700 (according to a recent Costal Commission analysis), the plant would produce 50 million gallons a day or 56,000 acre feet per year of drinking water, 8 percent of Orange County’s supply. The plant would share the seawater intake pipes currently used for cooling by the AES power generating plant.

Poseidon wants to build a nearly identical desal plant in Carlsbad in San Diego County.

The proposed taxpayer-funded subsidy, says the letter, which was written June 23 and obtained by the Voice, would help MWDOC’s agencies to “defray” the high cost of desalinated water—which is generally two to four times higher than other sources.

The subsidy would go through MWDOC’s agencies which would in turn pay it directly to Poseidon over 25 years at $14 million per year in return for water delivered.

Largely funded by taxpayers outside of Orange County who won’t use the water, the subsidy would artificially lower the cost of Poseidon’s desalinated water, which would still probably not be competitive with the cost of water from other sources, including imported water. Desal advocates say that technological improvements for desalination and rising costs of imported water will cause prices to crisscross in the near future, but those improvements show no signs of arriving soon, if ever.

A pro-industry report published in 2004 by the federal government concluded that the invention of cost effective desal technology would require a huge influx of government subsidies to fund the research and development that the industry is lax in doing itself. Even then, it would take over 20 years to make seawater desal competitive, the report estimated.

Without huge public subsidies, Poseidon cannot attract the private investors and get permission to pass tax free bonds also needed to finance the construction of its Huntington Beach plant. To the point, without subsidies—and based on past experience $350 million would not be nearly enough—Poseidon’s HB plant will be out of business.

That is exactly the scenario that played out last year for Poseidon’s proposed desalination plant at Carlsbad in San Diego County. It would be nearly identical in size and type and has received all of the necessary permits but stalled due to lack of financing and increased cost projections for the price of its water.

As reported last June by the Voice, a memo from the city manager Peter A. Weiss of Oceanside, one of nine water San Diego County agencies that had signed water purchasing agreements with Poseidon at that time, pointed out that Poseidon would need $630 million in government financial assistance.

Poseidon's VP Scott Maloni says the debate is over. Photo: Arturo Tolenttino

“In the past few months it has become apparent that Poseidon’s cost of water is going to be greater than originally proposed,” Weiss wrote. “To make the project viable, Poseidon needs subsidies from the San Diego County Water Authority (CWA) and Metropolitan Water District.”

But $630 million was too much money and a lawsuit filed by the city of Carlsbad against the MET had effectively canceled the larger of the two subsidies anyway. So the CWA decided that the only way to keep the project alive was by spreading the costs to all 26 of its member water agencies rather than the original nine with options to buy the desal plant from Poseidon later on.

That’s exactly the same arrangement that MWDOC will seek for the Huntington Beach plant, according to MWDOC’s General Manager, Kevin Hunt.

With MET’s subsidy to the CWA now off the books, Hunt decided that now is a good time for MWDOC to put a claim on the $350 million on behalf of its 28 agencies. So far, not a single one of them has signed on to buy Poseidon’s water, but Hunt believes that, since the MET will be looking at budget priorities next year, now is a good time to make the request.

The subsidy has always been the 1,000 pound gorilla in the room, although previous Huntington Beach city councils and the mainstream media chose to ignore it. But after years of project delays that were mostly self inflicted, and as the time comes for Poseidon to fish or cut bait, the company’s appetite for public assistance can no longer be hidden and has become a sore spot for the god of the sea.

But before voting to approve and mail the letter that it had not read, the board gave instructions to spin the subsidy from the publicly financed project that it is into the 100 percent privately funded project that Poseidon and supporters have always bragged it is.

Director Brett Barbre, representing parts of northern Orange County, started the impromptu skit, asking Hunt:

Does the $250 [per acre foot] go to Poseidon?

Hunt: No.

Barbre: Or does it go to the water district?

Hunt: The $250 goes to the water authority and its member agencies.

Barbre: Those that are actually purchasing the water?

Hunt: Whenever there is a subsidy, it goes to the public agency, not to the –

Barbre: It’s a big distinction.

Member Susan Hinman from south Orange County wanted and received assurance that Barbre’s spin would be applied to the letter before it was sent. “I feel uncomfortable about this,” she said. “I don’t see a copy of the letter and is there any reason why this can’t be delayed until the next committee meeting with a copy of the letter with the wording that you’re expressing,” she asked Hunt.

But Hunt’s other reason for rushing the letter through is to help Poseidon, which is years behind in answering basic questions put to it by the Coastal Commission, to “get the ball rolling.” Three to six months more for needed staff meetings with the MET would occur before the issue is placed on the agenda for vote, Hunt said.

Jack Foley, MWDOC’s appointed representative to the MET, concurred with the need to create confidence in Poseidon’s project by showing the Coastal Commission and investors that the company’s Surf City desal plant “has a real future” with actual water to sell.

When challenged on the real reason for the subsidy—to attract construction money—Foley stuck to the official story, that it will merely assure investors that there is a buyer for the project over the long term, denying the board’s own admission (in its soon to be sent letter) that the money was needed to defray the [highly uncompetitive] cost of Poseidon’s water.

The subsidy’s true purpose has been an open secret for a decade, but a report last year by the DC Bureau – based on interviews with government and Poseidon officials – spelled out in detail how the previously approved but now revoked subsidy for Poseidon’s identical Carlsbad desal project would have directly benefited the company by reimbursing it, at the company’s request, for construction costs plus interest.

Of course, Poseidon vice president Scott Maloni, who was at the meeting, still boasts that the HB desal plant is a privately funded project and is badly needed by the people of Orange County as part of a larger water portfolio – assertions that Orange County water officials accept as articles of faith.

“I feel like these folks are reopening old debates that have been solved years ago and it’s nothing to do with what’s on the table today,” Maloni told the board, responding to audience members, including this reporter, who challenged his assumptions. “They know that the project is needed…There’s no debate about whether the project is needed. And there’s no debate about how the MET subsidy works.”

In the second and final part of Dead in the Water on Wednesday: Is Poseidon’s proposed Huntington Beach desalination plant needed?

By Conner Everts
Desal Response Group

Drinking water from the Sea?

Sounds like a great idea. JFK once said that it would be a greater achievement than putting a man on the moon, and most polls have shown a 70 percent acceptance rate of the idea.

So what is the problem?

The corollary to JFK’s statement would be “when economically and environmentally feasible” and therein is the challenge.  However, the first question that should be asked is do we need ocean water desalination (often called desal) in California and would it hurt or harm the environment compared to its alternatives?

In 2006 there were 29 proposals for ocean desal projects along the California coast, with many attached to old coastal power plants, now there are only nine.  While industry proponents blame California’s protective environmental regulations and a few environmentalists’ opposition, there were three main issues that stalled the proposals.

First, despite the State Desal Task Force convened by legislation, there is no consensus on a regulatory order or state-wide direction. So each proposal lumbered through the multi-agency process.

That’s as it should be because if there is a large scale desal plant built in California it will be the first on the Pacific coast and largest in the Western Hemisphere.  The first proponent out of the gate was Poseidon, a private corporation from Connecticut that failed with its first desal project – the largest in the nation at 25 million gallons a day – in  Tampa Bay, Florida, and then proposed two more plants, each with twice that capacity, one in Huntington Beach in Orange County and the other in Carlsbad in north San Diego county.

While working hard to gather political support for its southern California desal projects, Poseidon failed to respond to repeated information requests by the Coastal Commission or to follow its permitting guidelines. Meanwhile, local opposition grew and water agencies weighed into issues of the marine environment, which they little understood, and were forced to navigate California’s complex and arcane water supply laws as well.

Second, conceived in a time of drought, the most recent crop of desal proposals depended on a fear of limited water supply while demand was high for new development. This was especially true where desal plants were proposed on the coast, thus allowing entry points for previously undeveloped areas with limited water supply.

With the collapse of the global economy, developments now sit idle and the need for desal as a redundant water supply for more growth is being questioned.  Promoted as an offset to water pumped over the Tehachapis and therefore reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the opposite is true. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) states in its subsidy contract that the water produced by desal would not curtail deliveries of any imported water source.  Rather blood would be let on the floors of the MWD boardroom before anyone at MWD would give up any sacrosanct water rights.

Furthermore, the promises that these proposed desal plants would offset water taken from the SF Bay Delta turned out to be false. Given the long history of getting water back to fish and the environment, there is no regulatory process to make that happen. Just look at the 20 years of litigation that has taken place over Mono Lake.

Third: first things first. There are untapped and cost-effective local water resources that must be developed and that have environmental benefits, unlike desal, such as maximizing serious water conservation and water reclamation, capturing and treating urban and storm-water runoff, expanding now legal greywater and rainwater cistern systems, and fixing leaky infrastructure or pipes.

Combine that with a systems approach with watershed management and we begin to get to the point that Australia, Spain, and Israel did before they invested in desal – which meant reducing per capita water demand to 30-50 gallons per day. Compare that to 174 gallons for California as a whole and 121 gallons for Los Angeles.

Many areas across the state, including Los Angeles and Long Beach, have had serious reductions in water demand and eliminated the need for desal—it’s not in Los Angeles’ 20 year supply plan and Long Beach is reconsidering after careful research.

California spent $50 million of Prop. 50 water bond monies on researching this issue and while not all the grant results have been revealed the emerging consensus is that proponents’ promise of a technological breakthrough that makes desal feasible or necessary hasn’t been realized. This is a case of its not the technology, stupid, it is the lack economic considerations and available capital.

And then it rain, and rained, and continues to rain.  Reservoirs filled and spilled.  Snow pack reached record levels in the Rockies, from where a portion of our imported supply originates.  If we had only realized the potential to capture rainwater and redistribute stormwater back into our depleted underground aquifers, this would have been a great winter to replenish the bank of locally stored water.

A quick historical perspective shows that ocean water desal plans come and go in California.  In the 60s and 70s it was twin nuclear power plant islands to be built offshore and provide all the water we needed and a small plant that was sent from the navel base in Point Loma to Guantanamo in Cuba.

In the 80s and 90s it was the Santa Barbara plant that was built in the middle of the six-year drought and was idled before it ever was connected by El  Niño spring. While it is still being paid for it is more cost effective not to run it.

At Catalina Island in the late 80s a small plant was built as a back up to allow a developer to build condos.  It sat idle for many years until Southern California Edison took it over, and in the only place where they sell water it takes 70 percent of the island’s electricity to produce 20 percent of its water.

Internationally, where there is often no other choice, limits have been reached but with a price. Australia is now deeply indebted for billions for plants that sit idle and have been flooded.  Even the Middle East is having problems with desal with huge demands for energy and subsidized water in Saudi Arabia and discharge levels that increase salinity and therefore energy demands in enclosed areas.

Ocean desal is promoted heavily by a cabal of membrane manufacturers, including GE, power plants operators hoping to keep their old fish-killing machines operating, water agencies looking for large capital projects built with some else’s money, engineering consultants and even Las Vegas.

But the bloom is off the issue. It looks good on the outside but once you delve into the inside there are problems, like fast food might sound good at the moment of hunger but the results of eating it are negative.  Investing in the current crop of desal plants is like buying an old Hummer with today’s gas prices.

Concerned citizens who organized statewide and locally to inform the public and fight the desalination surge can now declare victory and focus back on appropriate multi-benefit local water resources.  It does not mean we won’t continue to monitor these projects but to focus on only the fight would validate an issue that, once again, has passed away. After ten years, this time, we should celebrate a successful fight that brought this to the light of day and the fact that California is not ready for ocean desal and it is not ready for us.

There are many other issues around desal including energy intensity, huge marine and fishery impacts and the alternatives, drinking water quality, sea-level rise with industrializing the coast and the true costs of water. Go to the website www.desalresponsegroup.org for more than you would want to know and links to the many references made in this article.